Donald Trump made a huge deal out of allowing Medicare to negotiate deep discounts for prescription drugs. All it took was one meeting with Big Pharma executives to drop the act and reject the idea.1

Trump is pushing the same old Republican strategy that led to unprecedented Big Pharma profits and Americans dying because they can't afford medicine: tax cuts and shredding safety rules. Democrats have a better answer. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, together with Sen. Sherrod Brown, just reintroduced an important bill to take on Big Pharma and let Medicare negotiate drug discounts.

The new Democratic House of Representatives is exposing Trump's scam-artist populism and laying out a real progressive vision. But it's up to us to generate the support to overcome opposition from corporate Democrats and put pressure on Republicans to let Medicare negotiate lower drug prices.

Big Pharma repeatedly threatens to take medicine off the market if the government starts negotiating discounts. These callous threats are enough to make many Americans nervous. But the new Democratic bill has real teeth – if Big Pharma refuses to negotiate in good faith, the government could issue a license to a competitor to produce a generic version of the drug.2

Republicans have stubbornly defended their Big Pharma backers for years and prevented Medicare from even attempting to negotiate lower prescription drug prices. Trump made a lot of noise – and sent a few rambling tweets – but as always, when the going gets tough, Trump gets with the richest and most powerful. Nothing his regime has done would lower drug prices – Pfizer even announced price increases right as Trump was bragging about forthcoming price cuts.3

Americans pay the highest prices for prescription drugs of anywhere in the world. In fact, we not only pay high prices for desperately needed medication, but our tax dollars also pay for the research that makes Big Pharma so rich. No wonder permitting negotiation is so popular.4

This bill is what resistance to the Trump-Big Pharma alliance looks like. We need to give it our support in order to expose Trump's drug price hypocrisy and show that progressives have real solutions to the problems America faces.